Graham’s Garden -Works of Frances Mason @seasewed
Dates: 12th -30th March Tuesday – Saturday 11 am – 5 pm
Launch 15th March 6 – 8 pm
From my very first visit to The Italian Garden at Great Ambrook I was haunted by the elements beneath the surface. While the garden volunteers unearthed buried plants and ancient pathways, I sketched, and felt the presence of the people who had shared this magical space over a century ago. It was as if the garden was disclosing its secrets.
Passage of time has left its mark on the physical nature of the garden leaving the sense that past occupants and events are somehow etched into its fabric shrouded by the process of growth and decay, images just waiting to be resurrected.
I felt I was drawing back into time to the world of the young Arthur Smith Graham, who created the garden. A world of great literature and art, love of beauty and decadence but also a time of fear, prejudice, social inequality and approaching war. The impact of Oscar Wilde’s trial and imprisonment in 1895 lingered on in a climate that must have influenced Graham’s request that his documents and photographs were destroyed at his death. The resulting absence of words left a space for imagination. The more I drew the more I knew there was a visual narrative waiting to be revealed. I decided the story of “Graham’s Garden” would be my final project for my master’s degree in illustration.
‘I am very grateful to the Italian Garden and the volunteers for sharing their stories and their magical place with me.’
Artizan are delighted that Frances is allowing us to be the first venue to show these works and equally delighted to learn that she was awarded a distinction by Falmouth University earlier this year for this intimate and exceptional interpretation of ‘Graham’s Garden’.